Time for a change? ... "We've got the cleanest water in Australia and we have more hours of sunshine per year than Sydney or the Gold Coast,'' claims campaign ads / AAP
Source: AAP

Campaign targeting stressed city dwellers

A place where "everyone is richer and happier"

Canberra is not freezing, it's "fresh and invigorating"

IT should be a harder sell than convincing someone who owns a Ferrari to buy a Commodore, but a campaign aimed at getting Sydneysiders to move to Canberra claims to be working.

The Live in Canberra advertising push is hitting stressed city dwellers where it hurts, in their smog-filled eyes, with ads on Sydney buses asking: “Like traffic that moves? Move to Canberra.''

Traffic ... what traffic?

Simon Kinsmore, a spokesman for the ACT Chief Minister's office, paints a picture of Canberra as a utopian wonderland, where everyone is richer and happier and “traffic'' is something that drug dealers do (but only in other states).

The average commute in the nation's capital is claimed to be just 20 minutes, and no one ever gets stressed about trains running late, because there aren't any.

“We've got great roads and there's certainly no traffic jams - and we don't have any tolls, either,'' Mr Kinsmore gloated.

Pollution? Nope, none of that either

“And there's no pollution. We've got the cleanest water in Australia and we have more hours of sunshine per year than Sydney or the Gold Coast.''

Of course Canberra has something else that neither of those cities truly enjoys - winter. Some might suggest it's the only “cool'' thing about the ACT.

But Mr Kinsmore laughs off the city's average winter temperature of 12C.

“We have a few myths about Canberra that we like to debunk and one of them is that it's freezing,'' he said.

"Fresh and invigorating"

“We don't use that word because it's not freezing, it's fresh and it's invigorating.''

Despite claiming to have one of the lowest unemployment figures in the nation, the ACT is crying out for more workers, which is why the campaign is trying to lure Sydneysiders.

“We've got businesses here screaming out for more skilled workers in IT and accountancy, and there's also a building boom so we need more tradesmen as well,'' Mr Kinsmore said.

“In the last quarter we did have a net migration of about 900 people, so we might be able to put that down to the campaign.''

Home for dinner

One family that has made the move this year are the Mendozas, who had lived in Normanhurst for the previous 13 years.

Accountant Jay Mendoza, 42, said he and his wife used to spend at least two hours a day commuting in Sydney.

“My eight-year-old daughter said recently: ‘I love living here because you're always home for dinner,' and it's true - I was never home for dinner during the week before,'' he said.

“It's just so much easier to get around, it's like you've stepped off the rat race.''

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